June 16, 2013

I know it has been 6 months since we left Pennsylvania, but packing up
for another move to the other side of the country came really fast! Three weeks
ago we left Iowa and went to Utah for a week to visit family, then headed out
to California to visit my Dad and family for a week, then finally got up here
to Medford, OR for another internship that will last all summer. Brandan has
one more block of classes, lectures, exams and practicums down and a year of school left to go, I’ve gotten a
few projects done I’ve been wanting to do since before college life began
several years ago, and Kaiya has learned quite a few new tricks! I’m excited to
see how different she will be when we return to Iowa near the end of August!
She grows too fast!

Anyone who knows Brandan knows his fascination with disc golf since he
started graduate school. He LOVES it so much – he plays every chance he gets,
usually once or twice a week if the weather permits, and finally had the chance
to enter into a small tournament up in Northern Iowa in April with some friends
from DSM. Kaiya and I tagged along for fun and it was a blast hanging out at
the park all day while the guys played a couple of games and received some new
t-shirts, discs, and prizes for various competitions. I think everyone came home
with one prize or another so it was a good experience. I have a feeling he will
be entering into several more tournaments in the future, and I might join him!

[the group we went with: Cody, Jordan,
Ethan, Brandan & AJ]

[Kaiya hanging out in the BOB]

[Having fun!]

Outside of school and disc golfing, Brandan made his own disc golf
basket from scratch. It was very impressive and he and his schoolmates use it
daily during their lunch break. He used some old snow tire chains, a camera
tripod, wiring and electrical tape, a storage basket, and some foam noodles for
padding along the base. Let’s just say, if Brandan is going to do something, he’s
going to go all out. I think he spent maybe 6 hrs or so sawing the chain pieces
and setting it up but it was well worth it to have a basket for putting
practice over lunch!

When I haven’t been busy with scrapbooking projects or other household
activities, I have been taking Kaiya outside. She absolutely loves being
outside – she loves feeling the grass (and of course trying to pull it up and
eat it), watching the clouds in a bright blue sky, feeling the wind (she use to
stop breathing for moments at a time when she’d feel it, it was pretty funny),
and people/car watching. I’ve taken her to numerous play groups where she’s
perfectly happy just watching all the kids run around and play. I also feel
blessed that she’s so easy to entertain herself well with a few little toys.
You know, some people gave us expensive store-bought toys for her and she
totally prefers the random everyday objects like spoons, granola bar wrappers, Tupperware
lids, necklaces, etc, which I’m grateful for since she’s easily distracted by
them if we’re away from home and she’s getting bored!

We’ve had a few “firsts” with Kaiya the past several months, which may
not be so exciting to experience parents, but they’re WAY exciting to us! She
has gone from having milk 6 times a day to having it 4 times and day along with
2 meals of pureed foods. I’ve wanted to start making my own baby food so it
doesn’t have all the processed junk and sugar in it but it’s hard to do that
when we aren’t living in our own home with our own kitchen stuff back in Iowa.
However, we did find some pretty cool organic baby foods that have interesting
flavors like “raspberry, oatmeal and quinoa” and “pumpkin, banana and mango,”
etc. It will be even more fun when she can start eating solids so we don’t have
to carry around little pouches of pureed stuff with us!

Kaiya got sick for the first time ever. At 6 months she began teething
a bit and, along with that pain, she got pink eye. Luckily, since I’m nursing
her, we were able to get rid of the goopy/pink eyes fairly quickly with some
sprays of silver and ‘mommy milk’ as Brandan lovingly calls it (breast milk) in
her eyes. Isn’t it amazing what the body can do?? Kaiya got sick while we were
in California just over a week ago and as soon as she got better, Brandan and I
came down with strep throat and an ear infection. For Brandan and I, we made a
daily routine of taking extra vitamins, spraying silver in our throats,
breathing in steam, placing a carrot and ginger poultice in our throats for 30
minutes at a time, placing hydrogen peroxide in my ear and using heated onion
halves to draw out my ear infection. NO medications, other than a nasal
congestant later on, NO help from a doctor… thank goodness for modern medicine
for some things, but thank even more goodness for those ancient homeopaths who
figured out how natural things affect our bodies when we’re ill! Anyway, so
after almost two weeks of one of the three of us being sick, we are almost
completely healed and Brandan can finally begin his internship!

I feel a little guilty saying this, but I’m glad that Brandan stayed
from from work sick with me for a few days because otherwise he would have
missed seeing Kaiya roll over! She is one of those babies who is totally
content just hanging out on the floor or in a chair so she’s difficult to
motivate movement out of. However, she loves her binky, so with that as her
prize, we got her to roll over by herself multiple times in a row just this
past Tuesday and it was awesome to watch. It blows my mind how quickly she
learns and advances! I should put a plug in that technically, the first time
she rolled over was in her swaddler on my Dad’s bed in California, but no one
saw it actually happen and she wouldn’t do it again…

Kaiya doesn’t talk yet, but she recently learned how to consistently
lip buzz and spit and since we laugh almost every time, she has made it her way
of getting attention when no one is paying too much attention to her – it’s
pretty cute. She also squeals quite a bit. Several people have mistaken it for
her needing something or being in pain or about to cry, and when they look at
me to see if I’m going to be a good mommy and take care of her, I just have to
shrug my shoulders and let them know she’s playing. Why can’t she just babble really
cute like she use to? She still isn’t a very loud baby though, so I don’t mind!

Her strawberry blonde hair has
gotten a bit thicker and longer on top so we can actually put it into a tiny
little pony tail! I don’t do it often yet since I have to wrap the rubber band
around about 10,000 times, but it’s fun to play with.

[Kaiya’s first pony tail!]

I also stuck a little strawberry swimsuit on her so we could play in a
mini pool with a few friends and their kids. Sadly, the water was pretty cold
so I could only really dip her toes in, but she enjoys bath time quite a bit so
when we get farther into the summer we’ll have to try again.

[Kaiya’s first experience taking a dip in
the pool with her friends Isabel, Aaron & Cassidy]

[“squirrel!” haha – oddly, this is a
typical face she makes when she’s excited about anything!]

At the first BBQ of the summer, on Mother’s Day, Kaiya got bored being
on the ground with some toys but Brandan and I wanted to help grill and play
around with a soccer ball so, what was the solution? Use a little blanket to
tie her into a kiddie camping chair so she could see everyone and thus remain
entertained. Way to go Brandan for the creativity! Luckily no one called child
services on us for tying up our child!

[Kaiya tied to her kiddie camp chair]

[Kaiya and I were matchy-matchy for
Mother’s Day J]

On our way from Iowa to Oregon, we made a dinner stop in Nebraska so we
could visit our friends Tyson and Jackie and their 1 ½ year old son Logan.
Logan was so cute hugging Kaiya several times in a row several times during
dinner – he’s a keeper if they ever date in the future! ;). From there, we
moved on to Utah where we stayed with Brandan’s Dad and family and then his Mom
and family. We spent a week playing disc golf, having family BBQ’s, playing
games, watching and playing soccer, helping out with yard work projects,
googling over Kaiya, and having lunch with my grandparents and the Page family.
We then traveled out to California where we spent several days at my Dad’s home
meeting new family members, visiting the coast, shopping, eating way too many
delicious sweets and taking care of pink-eyed Kaiya. After 2 straight weeks of
travel and with lowered immune systems from the driving, lack of sleep, eating
out and eating sugar, we got to beautiful Medford, OR and relaxed and recuperated
illness for the first week of Brandan’s internship (he’ll have to make up
several sick days, but it was nice to have family bonding time!).

About Me

We were married in the winter of 2010 and are so excited about everything that we get to go through and accomplish together. We've both graduated from BYU-I with degress in Exercise Physiology and are in the process of getting through graduate school and adding to our little family. We love being adventuresome and hardly ever miss up a chance at participating in, eating, or seeing something new and different.